Poll Results: Is it weird to like sibilance?

I often find myself yearning to hear sibilance when listening to music. I always expect the harshness of things like hard "s"es or cymbal crashes, and I and disappointed if I don't hear it. It isn't like I want a ton of it, but more like I have an appreciation for it. Much in the same way that I have an appreciation for tight bass.

Has anyone else experienced such a thing? Is there a name for something like this, or am I some sort of weirdo for liking it?

Unless extended treble is against one's taste, this is very much normal. As with your point about bass, sibilance is the other end of the scale, and you need reasonable extension and detail in both to avoid "compressed" sounding music, which is one of the biggest hates of audiophiles.

I would agree though that a lot of people rave over slamming bass, yet there isn't much appreciation for extended treble, so perhaps there is some gain from this topic

Extended treble isn't sibilance. Sibilance is a peak in the 8000 hz region that makes everything sound horrible. Also, a headphone doesn't need large amounts of treble to be sibilant. I've never found ety's sibilant whilst my hd25 is. Sibilance isn't comparable to boomy bass, one should compare it to one-note bass. And frankly I've never seen somebody enjoy one-note bass. So I still recon the love for sibilance is a weird phenomenon. How do you cope with it when listening to live music where you'll have to live without sibilance?

I think you're missing the OP's point. What I believe they're trying to say, and what I'm trying to say, is whilst we appreciate tight, punchy bass (rather than the one-note kind), we also appreciate relative clarity at the other end of the scale, rather than compressed sounding treble where cymbals and the likes sound as if they're actually a single little triangle battling against an orchestra of bass instruments. Maybe I'm wrong though: perhaps they do mean out-right sibilance, in which case I've miss-understood and should have voted them being weird along with everyone else. Maybe I Mm

I'll happily join you in saying I don't like a massive peak in the music there, but at the same time I do want to hear some, else I can't liken it to hearing the same thing in real life.

And of course I don't mean absolute treble extension (i.e. whether the headphone can manage 16K+ at any sensible level), but when you're considering music, unless you enjoy listening to high frequency waves, the ringing from cymbals etc. is about as high as you're going to get, so it's only natural to talk about treble at the same time. And yes, a headphone doesn't have to have large amounts of treble to be sibilant, but I don't know of any headphones in particular that have a sizable bass hump just to go on and have very little treble other than an 8K peak. If I did find one, I sure wouldn't want to listen to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ynoskire

Extended treble isn't sibilance. Sibilance is a peak in the 8000 hz region that makes everything sound horrible. Also, a headphone doesn't need large amounts of treble to be sibilant. I've never found ety's sibilant whilst my hd25 is. Sibilance isn't comparable to boomy bass, one should compare it to one-note bass. And frankly I've never seen somebody enjoy one-note bass. So I still recon the love for sibilance is a weird phenomenon. How do you cope with it when listening to live music where you'll have to live without sibilance?

Extended treble isn't sibilance. Sibilance is a peak in the 8000 hz region that makes everything sound horrible. Also, a headphone doesn't need large amounts of treble to be sibilant. I've never found ety's sibilant whilst my hd25 is. Sibilance isn't comparable to boomy bass, one should compare it to one-note bass. And frankly I've never seen somebody enjoy one-note bass. So I still recon the love for sibilance is a weird phenomenon. How do you cope with it when listening to live music where you'll have to live without sibilance?

Not necessarily.

Sibilance is a natural part of some recordings. And when portrayed correctly, they should still have some sibilance.

Take, for example, an entire slew of "quiet" female singers who have to be mic'd closely. Dianna Krall, Melody Gardot, Carla Bruni.

Their recordings are covered up with harsher consonant sounds. Particularly "S" sounds.

If a system does not give you the slight hiss when Melody Gardot ssssings, then I wouldn't necessarily call it neutral and revealing.

Since the sibilance phenomenon can be linked with intimate recording techniques, one might even go so far as to call sibilance in female vocals sexy.

What I meant was I enjoying hearing very detailed treble, more so than I enjoy detailed bass/mids. Whenever I am listening to music, say Avenged Sevenfold or Beethoven, where there are loud and distinct cymbal crashes, I expect for the treble to be as detailed as it is in real life. When I stand next to a drum and someone smashes a cymbal, I hear sibilance. There isn't tons of it, but if I don't hear that reproduced with my headphones, I feel almost cheated. As if I am missing out on actually being there to hear it for myself.

That does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I want to hear overemphasized sibilance, in the same way that I wouldn't want to hear overemphasized bass. Too much sibilance hurts my ears as much as the next guy, but if there is none there, I consider the headphones or speakers to be inaccurate. I always expect and look for sibilance in a decent degree when listening to music.

What I meant was I enjoying hearing very detailed treble, more so than I enjoy detailed bass/mids. Whenever I am listening to music, say Avenged Sevenfold or Beethoven, where there are loud and distinct cymbal crashes, I expect for the treble to be as detailed as it is in real life. When I stand next to a drum and someone smashes a cymbal, I hear sibilance. There isn't tons of it, but if I don't hear that reproduced with my headphones, I feel almost cheated. As if I am missing out on actually being there to hear it for myself.

That does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I want to hear overemphasized sibilance, in the same way that I wouldn't want to hear overemphasized bass. Too much sibilance hurts my ears as much as the next guy, but if there is none there, I consider the headphones or speakers to be inaccurate. I always expect and look for sibilance in a decent degree when listening to music.

I hope that that clarifies.

i understand what you're saying now.

but it might be more accurate to say that headphone listening removes room acoustics / distortions / phenomena from the listening experience.

and one of those phenomena may be the way loud treble sounds when reverberating in a live venue.

because, conversely, not hearing it when listening to headphones is more likely an indication that it is not present in the recording, unfortunately.

The thing is, I often hear it with my Superlux hd662f and even my meleec m6 when I don't hear it say in my car or with ipod earbuds. (I have a friend who swears by those things but that is beside the point) I wouldn't venture to say that it is the room acoustics that I am expecting to hear. This point is something that I am not sure how to clarify. Have you ever stood near someone playing the drums? That un-messed-with harshness in the treble of the cymbals is what I am talking about.

Sibilance does not mean detail. You should probably change the thread title (and poll if you can) before you confuse everyone. You don't need excessive sibilance to be detailed. There should be some when it's on the recording. It doesn't have to hurt.